Description of Problem: Red Hat 7.1 Installer hangs when "booting linux" from CD. No messages are seen after that. I tried all modes (X, text, expert, linux dd, nofb, linux noprobe, linux nodma) How Reproducible: Every time Steps to Reproduce: 1. Insert Red Hat 7.1 CD #1 2. boot 3. at Installer "boot:" prompt, press Enter or enter any option Actual Results: In text mode, the system stops after the message "Booting Linux". The hexleds display "80". In default mode, screen goes black before that and hexleds display "20". Expected Results: ... Additional Information: Running dual Pentium III w/440BX chipset. SCSI BIOS is Adaptec AIC-7880 v2.10. The motherboard design for the AIC-7880 chipset was cloned from the AHA-2940UW PCI SCSI controller. We suspect the problem is in the aic7xxx driver since we had problems with that on RH6.2. In this case, that is just a guess since at least we were able to install RH6.2. The aic7xxx.c code for RH7.1 is vastly different from RH7.0.
This is a kernel problem. You might also take a look at http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/gotchas/7.1/gotchas-71.html, which has some information about the aic7xxx driver. Changing component
this is a BIOS or hardware problem, the kernel hasn't even been started yet, so no amount of change in aic7xxx will make a difference. Make sure you have the latest SCSI BIOS installed.
Red Hat 7.0 Installs and runs fine with the Adaptec aic7880 SCSI BIOS v2.10, which is what we have, and the aic7xxx driver installed by Red Hat. I would tend also to think it is a problem with the 7.1 kernel. Here is the precise place the 7.1 Installer hangs: boot: expert Loading initrd.img.............................................. Loading vmlinuz..................... ready. Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting the kernel. The aic7xxx bug reports all got error messages identifying the aic7xxx as the problem. We do not. Some users were able to eliminate the hang by using the "noprobe" option. Both "expert" and "linux noprobe" are supposed to disable PCI probe and allow selection of a driver, as is "linux dd". Using these options, Installer still hangs. How can the SCSI BIOS or the aic7xxx driver be causing the hang?
Red Hat 7.2 Beta installer and aic7xxx driver work fine.
Ok call me puzzled as the beta has the same aic7xxx driver..
The installer was hanging every time in the initial boot immediately after the message "Ok, booting the kernel" before it even outputs the message that it is loading the aic7xxx driver, so that was probably not the problem. Using the "noprobe" option supposedly keeps the installer from probing the PCI bus, so presumeably the SCSI BIOS was not the problem either, but who knows? One thing is certain, the 7.1 installer was hanging every time and 7.2 does not. Perhaps you should go look at the code and see what is different. There is little point in having a theoretical argument.